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Our friend Whitney sent us this great blog post from “Mr. Nice Guy”: Four months of Fatherhood Lessons.

I don’t know who this Mr. Nice Guy is but he’s pretty right on.

Fatherhood at this age is a strange thing. Unfortunately, nobody seems to want to address the real issues of fatherhood that I’m running into. I keep reading these articles online about this issue, and I’m actually rather disappointed with their lack of insight. They say stuff like:

• He is really your kid.
• You can still play with your baby even though you aren’t the one breastfeeding
• Your baby loves you even though you aren’t the one breastfeeding.
• Your baby knows who you are even though you’re at work all day, not breastfeeding him.
• You won’t necessarily be the same dad as your dad was. (But he didn’t breastfeed either, so you two can now can bond over that.)

Most online articles seem to address issues about being a good enough father. I think that for the most part, I’m probably doing alright. I’m sure that when he’s 13 and telling me that I just don’t understand him, that I’ll be asking these deeper questions about my parental abilities. But for now, it seems like being a ‘good father’ isn’t much more than being nice to him and Heather.

Now maybe I’m just an elightened dad because all of these things are pretty obvious to me, and I wish all the dads out there the best if this kind of advice is actually helpful. However, I have a feeling if you’re actually seeking these articles out, you probably know this stuff.

My fears right now are more fleeting, more random, more like “What if he’s autistic?” Of course I say this because he seems more or less oblivious to anything and everything unless it involves me blowing rasberries or making clicking noises with my tongue. Then I realize, “Oh right, he’s just four months old.”

My other issues with fatherhood right now are mostly about the imminent future, and… well they’re more practical, such as:

• How much longer is he going to just lie there on his back?
• How do I entertain him after my lips are chapped from blowing rasberries?
• When is he going to tell me whats bugging him, instead of screaming?
• When do I get to feed him avocado?
• When can we play scrabble?
• When will I be able to tell him about what’s wrong with the federal government, and why he should be a liberal freak like me?
• How does Heather keep it together after hanging out alone with this fairly uncommunicative little creature for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week?

So maybe the next stage in enlightenment is really about patience - long term patience. My moment-to-moment patience has helped me get through the crying jags to the point where I can think somewhat clearly, even as I’m going deaf. Now its time for me to be patient about those next stages of development.

In the mean time, I’ll just keep teaching him scrabble. I’m sure he’ll understand “Double Word Score” it once he stops shoving the letters in his mouth.